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Neruda is my favourite. I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees. Here's another one Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
by throwaway43 12y ago
Neruda is my favourite.
I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees.
Here's another one
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
How he is able construct such powerful verse out of simple words and concepts always blows me away. Though it looks easy I've never seen a good imitation of his style.
Then there's this poem by Phillip Larkin that I like.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Shakespeare's sonnets are good.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Classical poetry is just really hardcore when you consider how hard it is to write within the constraints of rhyme , meter and the chosen form. It's definitely in the hacker spirit of doing things like the JS1K contest , or maybe crazy assembly optimised demos.
Also checkout Charles Bukowski and Coleridge.
Genius.com is a wonderful way to read poetry.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y agoHurray, I've been looking for that Larkin poem since college.
- ta82828 12y agoNeruda + Pop band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWnM45HLe_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWnM45HLe_A
- tapichu 12y agoWow! I though nothing could be cornier than Neruda.
- avn2109 12y ago+1 for Coleridge, especially the first stanza of Kubla Khan [0]. Also, I'm surprised to see nobody here recommending A.E. Houseman. His Reveille is my favorite poem: ... Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play; Hark, the empty highways crying 'Who'll beyond the hills away?' ... [0] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247
- aptwebapps 12y agoI read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency before ever coming across Coleridge's Kubla Khan and spent quite a bit of time (this was before I was on the Internet) trying to find the rest of the poem. I was quite disappointed once I figured things out but on the plus side I understood what happened in the book afterwards.
- delibes 12y agoA personal favourite of mine, by Coleridge :- http://www.orgs.miamioh.edu/anthologies/bijou/vissat/Workwithouthope.htm http://www.orgs.miamioh.edu/anthologies/bijou/vissat/Workwit... Why? Because in the movie Groundhog Day, when Phil Connors has had his moment of enlightenment/peripety, he quotes : "And winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!" Knowing this poem makes the film better. Knowing how widely popular Coleridge became makes the poem better.
- daveslash 12y agoHouseman's a favorite of mine as well.
- jfaucett 12y ago"I want to do to you , what the spring does to the cherry trees." I've never seen that in english, so I looked it up (http://albalearning.com/audiolibros/neruda/poema14-sp-en.html http://albalearning.com/audiolibros/neruda/poema14-sp-en.htm...) I guess it goes without saying, but english really doesn't do him justice, rhyming trees with kisses is pretty poor compared to cerizos and besos which is perfect rhyme. But I suppose poetry is about the most difficult thing to translate b/c of the many levels from phonetical to subtle contextual and semantical differences that are all overlayed and compacted into a few small verses. I certainly wouldn't want to / couldn't translate it. But yea, in spanish my favorites are Neruda and Borges (see: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generaci%C3%B3n_del_45 http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generaci%C3%B3n_del_45). I found this link which has a lot of other good poets IMHO for instance ruben dario or mario benedetti (http://www.cubaeuropa.com/cubarte/poesia/PoesiaLatinoamericana.htm http://www.cubaeuropa.com/cubarte/poesia/PoesiaLatinoamerica...). In english I just nerd out on the old the stuff and for some reason never really got into anything newer... I like chaucer, spencer, milton, shakespeare, plus just reading through all those in the original is so cool after a couple pages you slip into another world and time, nice escapism.
- sebkomianos 12y ago> rhyming trees with kisses is pretty poor compared to cerizos and besos which is perfect rhyme I read the spanish version from the link you posted and, although I don't speak spanish, it doesn't look like there is any other rhyme at all in the whole poem. Am I right? Do you think that this was intentional - does it mean something in spanish/latin american poetry?
- jfaucett 12y agoNo there's rhyming all over the place in this one, just not always on the end of the line. But first and second stanzas, in the 4th just take for example: "Pasan huyendo los pájaros. El viento. El viento" huyendo rhymes with viento, pasan alliterates with pajaros, and the "l" en los and "o" in pajaros fits very nicely with the "l" and "o" in the repition of "el viento". In english you see the translator trying to get it somewhat with birds and by : "The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind."
- ridgeguy 12y agoI'll join you in appreciating Neruda. Me gusta especialmente Los Versos del Capitan. Night on the Island, just one of the gems. http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/neruda/captainsverses.html http://www.akirarabelais.com/vi/o/thelibraryofbabel/neruda/c...
- aryamaan 12y agoGenius.com is a wonderful site.